


who doesn't long for someone to hold (if there's a soulmate for everyone)

by jessicawhitly



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24567058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicawhitly/pseuds/jessicawhitly
Summary: The morning Jessica Milton turns eighteen and no soulmark appears on her skin is the same day whatever childish notions she’d had of love were locked away deep, deep down inside of her.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo/Jessica Whitly
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41





	who doesn't long for someone to hold (if there's a soulmate for everyone)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! This show and ship has kind of taken over my life- I'm on my third rewatch in as many weeks, and I keep finding new things to love. I've got quite a few fic ideas floating around, but I love a good soulmate au, and this one really latched on, so I ran with it. I hope you enjoy, please let me know what you think! Title is from Soulmate by Natasha Bedingfield.

The morning Jessica Milton turns eighteen and no soulmark appears on her skin is the same day whatever childish notions she’d had of love were locked away deep, deep down inside of her.

It isn’t particularly uncommon to not have a soulmark, but everyone she knows has on- her parents had been soulmates, the only way to marry into the Milton fortune, but even those who had soulmarks didn’t necessarily marry those with matching marks. It wasn’t a common practice, but it happened, and produced happy enough unions, from what Jessica had been able to tell as an outside observer.

At nineteen, Jessica meets Martin Whitly, and finds herself charmed head over heels by the med student. He’s markless, like her, but his argument is unlike any she’s heard before.

“You know, Jessie- I think the fact that we don’t have any marks is just what makes us soulmates,” he tells her on their fourth date, and Jessica arches her eyebrow as she sets her spoon back in the dish of ice cream they’re sharing. No one’s ever called her Jessie before, and no one’s ever posed the theory that being markless together could potentially mean a whole new crop of soulmates.

“Interesting theory,” she remarks, and Martin’s eyes light up at the compliment he assumes she’s giving him. “Tell me more.”

Martin wins her over easily, and they’re married before her twenty first birthday, much to Mother’s chagrin. It’s the talk of page six- soulmarkless only daughter of Emily and Arthur Milton marries no-name medical resident, also markless. It garners three full gossip circuits, which at least garners _her_ her mother’s forgiveness.

Jessica doesn’t quite know what to make of marriage, but when Malcolm comes along, tiny and perfect and feeling like the first fixed point in her entire life, nothing else matters. This small, perfect little person than she made is entirely dependent on her, and for the first time Jessica doesn’t care that she doesn’t have a soulmark on her body. She doesn’t feel useless or unnecessary, not when her son fits perfectly in the cradle of her arms or nestles sweetly against her cheek and snuffles in his sleep.

Malcolm grows like a weed, and before she even realizes she has a toddler that likes to chase after his father and listens to every word he hears so he can repeat it and grins at her with a little gap-toothed smile and giggles at everything. Then Ainsley comes along and it feels like their family is finally perfect and complete, and Jessica isn’t really all that bothered by the fact that she doesn’t have a soulmark. It hasn’t bothered her in years, not really.

All thoughts of soulmates and soulmarks seem trivial when Martin’s true nature comes to light, and Jessica’s world crashes down around her feet. It’s all she can do to keep herself and the children afloat, and the only life preserver seems to be one Lieutenant Gil Arroyo. He’s kind and generous and warm- he’s tender with Malcolm and sweet with Ainsley and supportive with her, and Jessica finds herself relying on him more than she ever could have anticipated in the weeks following Martin’s arrest.

Jessica doesn’t mean to fall for him; it’s unconscious, really. But one day, she catches the glimpse of ink, peeking out of the collar of his shirt, and she just _knows_. In the pit of her stomach, the knowledge that letting him go is the right thing to do sinks like a stone, and she does the cowardly thing- tells him they’re from different worlds.

He stays in Malcolm’s life, giving him the role model Martin could never have been, and Jessica watches from the fringes as he lives his life; moves on, gets married- rises through the ranks of the NYPD.

And Jessica _pretends_ it’s enough around the ache in her chest.

_

The _burn_ is what wakes her.

The gasp leaves her mouth as she rises to consciousness, the skin of her shoulder and upper chest burning in a way she’s never felt before. Tugging at her pajama top, Jessica unbuttons it and tries to press her palms to the too-hot skin in an attempt to soothe it, but the second she touched her shoulder the burn flared and she cried out, sitting up in her dark bedroom.

Fumbling, she flicks her bedside lamp on, gritting her teeth as she shrugged the top down until she could free her arm, baring the skin to the light. Her eyes widen, and Jessica gasps again- where there had once been pale skin was suddenly the dark ink of a soulmark, spread across her shoulder and upper chest.

The burn of her skin has finally faded, and Jessica takes a deep breath, gently touching the now-cool skin and lifting her arm to examine the brand new mark.

Settled over the round of her shoulder is a swirling sun, rays spiraling outward, while nestled on her collarbone is one bird, with a twin mirroring it just over her shoulder. It’s _beautiful_ , and Jessica delicately brushes her fingertips over it, unable to name the feeling that fills her chest.

But why _now_ , after all these years? It’s been a long time since she was eighteen, when everyone else got their soulmarks. The answer lingers in the back of her mind, just like the feeling of Gil’s lips on hers still lingers on her mouth, but that feels absurd. He’d moved on; found his soulmate in Jackie when she’d pushed him away twenty years ago. Like she’d _wanted_ him to.

Unable to fall back asleep, Jessica loses herself in an internet search for answers, trying to find anything on soulmarks appearing on people later in life. Hours later, she’s found more myths than facts, though a site called Reddit claims to have found a handful of people with marks that appeared later in life, when they’d _decided_ someone was their soulmate and they were markless. The knowledge sits low in her gut, and she’s about to dial Gil when she gets the call Malcolm is in jail, and everything else flies from her head.

It isn’t until Gil is bleeding out in the front seat of his ruined car, her hands shaking on the wheel as she speeds away from Endicott’s, that she even _thinks_ about the tattoo again. And it’s because as she takes the blood-soaked sweater off when she pulls off onto a side street, trying to gauge the wound, she sees the tattoo she’d studied in the mirror that morning staring back at her, spread over Gil’s shoulder and upper chest. The bird nestled on the collarbone moves with his shallow breathing, and Jessica’s fingers shake as they touch the inked skin.

The blaring lights of the ambulance finally find them, and then the EMTs take over, pulling Gil from Jessica; she follows in Gil’s car, trying not to look at the blood as tears burn behind her eyes. Everything feels suspended in time, and Jessica barely even realizes when someone wraps a blanket around her shoulders until Malcolm settles beside her, taking her hand in his.

“He’s going to be fine, Mother,” his voice is soft and reassuring, and Jessica feels a flicker of a smile on her face.

“He has to be, Malcolm,” she whispers, head sinking into her hands as her son wrapped his arm around her shoulders, rubbing gently.

By the time they allow her to sit by Gil’s bed, the rest of the team has gone home, and Malcolm has disappeared somewhere. So Jessica carefully sinks down onto the side of his bed, taking care not to jostle him or any of the tubs connected to him, and strokes a hand gently over his chest. His breathing makes it rise and fall beneath her palm, and her thumb naturally finds the bird on his collarbone.

All those years ago, she’d never seen his full tattoo. She’d just see that he had one; seen the beginnings of ink on his skin, and pushed him away because he deserved a chance to find his soulmate. It had felt unfair to keep him from his destined other half simply because it was what she _wanted_.

But now- now _she_ had his matching mark. Now she was his other half, according to the universe. Jessica didn’t know what to make of it all, and she needed Gil to wake up so she wasn’t all alone.

She falls asleep in the chair sometime later, blanket removed from her shoulders for a makeshift pillow on the hard hospital chair. Her dreams are blurred, and she’s only pulled from sleep by the heart rate monitor going off. Nurses pile into the room, and Jessica rises from the chair, disoriented, as they tend to Gil.

“You’re in the hospital, Lieutenant. You had surgery last night, but you’re fine now. Can you take a deep breath for me?” one of the nurses asks, checking the pulse monitor as she adjusts one of the IV lines, while the other nurse draws up something from a tiny vial, injecting it into one of the lines. The beeping slows, and Jessica keeps her hand pressed tight over her heart, jaw clenched tight as she tried to stay out of the way.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” she finally says when Gil’s bed is positioned up slightly, his eyes open and less pain-hazed. He wraps his hand around hers, squeezing tightly, and Jessica feels new tears prick the corners of her eyes. “You had me worried for a minute there.”

“You? Worried about me?” a chuckle emanates from Gil’s chest, and Jessica joins him after a moment, hers decidedly watery.

“I watched you- you get _stabbed_ , Gil,” she whispers, voice catching in her throat, and she clutches his fingers tighter. “And only hours after-”

She stops herself midsentence, realizing what she’d begun to say, but of course Gil hears her, frowning.

“Hours after what, Jess?” he asks, eyebrows furrowing together as he studies her face. She bites her lip, words stuck in her throat, until she simply shifts the neck of her shirt, displaying the tattoo.

“After _this_ appeared,” she manages to get out, and Gil blinks, staring at the ink on her skin.

“I don’t understand,” he starts, and Jessica lots out a flat laugh.

“Join the club. I spent half the night trying to figure out why I suddenly received a soulmark at age 50 when most get them at 18, and then- and then I saw that it was a match to _yours_ which makes no sense, because you found your soulmate already, I shouldn’t be able to _forge_ a soulmark to someone who’d already found their match,” Jessica’s rambling, she knows, but the lack of sleep and stress of the last 48 hours is starting to catch up to her as words spill out of her mouth. “And then I watched you get stabbed and nearly die in front of me, and-”

Gil’s fingers squeezing hers cut her off, and Jessica takes a breath, blinking rapidly.

“Jess…Jackie and I didn’t have the same soulmark,” he tells her softly, and Jessica’s eyes narrow briefly before they widen, a huff of surprise leaving her chest. “It didn’t…didn’t matter, to either of us. We knew how we felt, and that was enough.”

“Oh,” is all she can say, and the mark on her shoulder seems to burn at his words.

“What do you mean…forge?” he asks, and Jessica swallows hard, looking down at the fingers she’s twined together in her lap, clenching them hard.

“There is…a subset of the internet I found that seems to believe that markless people can…can forge soulmarks,” she starts, unable to lift her eyes to Gil’s, though she feels his gaze on her, heavy as his touch would be. “It isn’t common, and there seems to be certain sets of circumstances; only the markless can forge the mark on themselves, and it can only be the mark of someone who hasn’t found their other marked half.”

She clears her throat, straightening her spine for the next part.

“When they…when they _decide_ that that person is their soulmate, apparently they can forge their soulmark onto their own skin. Giving them a soulmark,” her voice drops slightly, emotion coating her words. “Giving them a soulmate.”

It only takes a moment, but Gil’s hands enclose around hers, stopping her from digging her nails into her palms the way she had been. His touch is gentle, the way it always is, and he flattens her fingers out until he can twine them together.

“Jess,” his voice is so infinitely soft it almost makes her shudder because she’s never had anything like this, Martin too loudly charismatic and Endicott too cockily possessive of her right from the start. One of his hands lifts to tilt her chin up until she blinks damp eyes open to look at him; his dark eyes are warm and full of something she’s too timid to name, and she swallows the whimper that threatens to escape her.

“I didn’t- I didn’t realize,” she tries to start, and his thumb against her lower lip stops her.

“ _Jess_ ,” he repeats, and moves his hand to gently cup her cheek; Jessica leans into the touch, letting out a breath. “That section of the internet say anything about the other half of the equation- in regards to the forging?”

Jessica’s eyes trace his face, and her fingers curl gently around his wrist.

“It’s up for debate, but- usually the forge doesn’t take if the other half doesn’t return the feelings,” she whispers, and Gil’s lips curl into a half-smile, thumb stroking along her cheekbone before his hand fell to her shoulder, moving her shirt to reveal the tattoo.

“Looks like it took pretty well,” he murmurs, and Jessica feels her cheeks flush. “You’re a pretty smart woman, Jessica. I think you can figure out for yourself what that means.”

She can’t help the way a tentative smile blossoms over her face, and she doesn’t fight the urge to lean forward, pressing her mouth softly to his.

“I meant it when I said you have always been good enough,” Gil whispers when they pull apart, his fingers carding through her hair and tucking it behind her ear tenderly. Jessica ducks her head, still unable to accept his words, and Gil gets her to stretch out by his side, hushing her worry about his wound. “Just lay here for a bit, Jess.”

With a huff Jessica relaxes against his side, her hand instinctively finding the tattoo, her thumb settling over the bird on his collarbone gently. Gil’s hand twines in her hair, holding her head to his shoulder, and Jessica finally feels the last of the tension finally leave her body.

“Only a Whitly would make their own soulmate,” there’s amusement in Gil’s voice, and if it weren’t for the stab wound, she would have poked him.

“Oh, you love it,” she chooses to retort with instead, and his reply is soft, pulling her lips into a gentle smile.

“I do. I love it very much indeed.”


End file.
